Convert Bars to Kilopascals

About converting Bars to Kilopascals

Bars (bar) and Kilopascals (kPa) are both units of pressure, so converting between them is a single multiplication: multiply your Bars figure by 100. Ten Bars comes to 1,000 Kilopascals, and a hundred works out at 10,000 Kilopascals.

Rule of thumb: going from Bars to Kilopascals multiplies, so the figure always grows — one Bar is already 100 Kilopascals. If your answer came out smaller, you have the conversion the wrong way round.

What is a Bar?

The bar is not an SI unit, but it is accepted for use alongside them, and it earns that place by sheer convenience: it was chosen to sit close to average atmospheric pressure, so "one bar" reads as roughly what the air is doing right now. It dominates European industry — compressed air, hydraulics, scuba cylinders, espresso machines and tyre pressures are all quoted in bar. Its subdivision the millibar had a long career in weather forecasting before being quietly replaced by the hectopascal, which is exactly the same size, so nothing on the old charts had to change.

What is a Kilopascal?

The kilopascal is what the pascal becomes once it is scaled to human problems — a thousand of them, and suddenly the numbers are readable. It is the everyday metric pressure unit across much of the world: tyre pressures in Canada, Australia and New Zealand are posted in kPa, as are the ratings on hydraulics, refrigeration and engineering specifications. Its close relative the hectopascal, a hundred pascals, is what weather services use for air pressure — chosen because it is exactly the size of the millibar forecasters used before it, so every published chart stayed valid.

To put both in perspective: a scuba tank is filled to about 200 bar, while a car tyre is inflated to roughly 220 kilopascals.

The converter above updates as you type, and the table lists common values for quick reference. Need the opposite direction? Use the Kilopascals to Bars converter, or browse all Pressure converters.